Organizing for America | Bit By Bit: Obama Opens Up Online Healthcare Discussion

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Obama Opens Up Online Healthcare Discussion

By Peter Erickson - Jul 7th, 2007 at 11:28 am EDT

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Tags: Health Care, internet, Obama, social networking

As part of his ethics reform package, Obama proposed making the internet not only a tool for furthering government transparency but for fostering civic engagement. The internet is not just there to disseminate information but to allow citizens to interact with their government: he imagined regular broadband townhall meetings from cabinet officials, opening up public regulatory hearings online, and creating an area on the White House website for public comment on pending legislation. Details here.
Now Obama has opened up a blog devoted exclusively to discussing health care and soliciting input. The goal is to create "a real forum for discussion and debate as a way to refine understanding and evolve solutions." This is a continuation and further development of Obama's social networking website towards including more policy discussion and will be called "My Policy," involving discussions on a variety of issues. Until now, "My Policy" has mainly been used as a way of gathering anecdotes from supporters for policy speeches, but the goal is now to move towards creating a dialogue.

The set-up is interesting. Obama's health care proposal is detailed on the front page and then there is a tab switching to a blog and discussion page where you can provide immediate input. It's interesting how seamless it is. In the future, perhaps each "Issues" page on Obama's website will have a discussion tab so that readers can immediately make comments, raise questions, and enter into a conversation with other supporters.
Most interestingly, there is a disclaimer on the blog. It reads:

The other thing to make clear is that this blog does NOT represent the opinion of Barack Obama and the campaign. That would run counter to the whole purpose which is open discussion and debate. This includes our central posts. While we are working with the campaign to get and keep this discussion up and running, going forward we will be looking primarily to facilitate a useful, lively discussion.

I think this is a good sign that this is actually meant to be a forum for open and honest debate. A genuine debate includes the possibility of taking positions that might conflict with the candidate. We'll see how it develops.
The opening discussion is on a New York Times op-ed about the growing consensus for health care reform. I'm hopeful though that the blog will address questions like individual mandates, single-payer, etc.
Take a look:
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/health care/
Then click on the My Policy discussion tab. There are already a number of comments from posters urging Obama to consider single-payer, telling their personal story, etc.

Links for reading more about Obama's health care proposal:
Here is an article by Obama Economic Advisor David Cutler on his plan:
http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/advisor _describes_obama_health_plan
Here is an article by Obama Economic Advisor Austan Goolsbee on the Movie Sicko's policy suggestions:
http://slate.com/id/2169454/

Cross-posted at MyDD:
http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/7/6/161041/9693#readmore

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